karthik
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Posts by karthik
Dark Field Lighting
Feb 13th
I came to know about this technique after reading Light Science and Magic book. Here is my try.
Here is short explanation on how to do it.
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Gangaikonda Cholapuram
Jan 17th
Yesterday, 16-1-2010, i went to gangaikonda cholapuram. I was planning this trip for almost 4 or 5 months, and finally the right time has come yesterday.
So, first about the place.
Gangaikonda Cholapuram was erected as the capital of the Cholas by Rajendra Chola I, the son and successor of Rajaraja Chola, the great Chola who conquered a large area in South India at the beginning of the 11th century C.E. It occupies an important place in the history of India. As the capital of the Cholas from about 1025 C.E. for about 250 years, the city controlled the affairs of entire south India, from the Tungabhadra in the north to Ceylon in the south. The great temple of Siva at this place is next only to the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur in its monumental nature and surpasses it in sculptural quality.
A formal description, as usual stolen from wikipedia 
The place is roughly 120 km from Trichy. I went in my bike, Honda Unicorn. Ya, i love bike bike riding though it pains
Me , my friend Sudhan and one more friend went in two bikes.
High Pass Sharpening
Jan 7th
Here is a method for sharpening i learned some time back. It uses the ‘high pass’ filter in photoshop cs4.
Text Version:
1. Duplicate the original layer [ctrl + j] and change the blend mode of duplicated layer to ‘overlay’.
2. Right click on the new layer and choose ‘convert to smart object’.
3. Now go to the ‘filter’ menu and choose ‘high pass’ from ‘other’ sub menu.
4. Change the Radius slider until you find a sweet spot. It varies for everyone and every image.
A small Video:
How to Create a 360 degree Panorama
Dec 30th
In this tutorial i will share how to create a 360 degree panorama.
Step 1: Taking Pictures
It is really simple like taking a normal panorama shot, the difference is you take pictures covering a full 360 degree. A tripod is preferable because it saves time in PS and you get a neat shot.
I use Nikon D60 with my 18-55mm kit lens and a cheap Velbon tripod. For D60 with 18-55 lens i don’t have any problems with tripod.
Put your camera in manual mode, set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Also do not change the focus points. Better the AE/AF lock function in your camera.
I don’t have sophisticated equipments for panoramic photography. I just rotate the camera in tripod approximately and click. Take 25-30 shots for a full 360 degree. I should be sufficient for the overlap.
Step 2: Photomerge
This video explains it all.
Here is the PS action mentioned in that video
http://www.rastervector.com/downloads/Panoramicsrev3.zip
Photoshop takes some time to merge the shots. If you have a good hardware you should not worry. I got the resulting PSD file size is around 500 MB after merging 24 – 10 MP shots. As the file size is very large it takes time for every action. That’s why a faster processor and more RAM space is needed.
Step 3: Displaying the output
Displaying the 360 degree panorama matters a lot. For example, see this. It is a 360 degree panorama but you cannot feel it. It is just like another panorama, but little long.
You need to convert the 360 degree panorama into a VR- Virtual Reality. You might have seen this 360 degree virtual tours in websites. It is the same thing.
I cannot find a free software to convert 360 degree panorama into a VR. If you can buy a software, go for anyone of these
There software allow you to convert 360 degree panorama into a VR, either flash VR ot Quicktime VR. I prefer flash VR. You can also add hotspots and much more.
Here i have a decent way of displaying the panorama.
http://technicalerror.net/360degree/1.html
As you can see it is not very much interactive, but certainly better than a normal photo. I used this script
If you have some decent knowledge in html you are done.
Some more links:
Infected With Virus ?
Dec 9th
Symptoms of a virus infection:
If your system has been infected by virus you may see some of these symptoms.
- Your system might be too slow. You can realize this easily.
- Some error messages occur frequently or your system might restart automatically
- Some programs may hang when opened.
These are some of the things you will notice. If you notice these it doesn’t always mean that your system is infected.
So I will discuss how to cleanup your system. This is a general cleanup method, you can do it once in a week or month.
Tools:
5 Useful Greasemonkey scripts for flickr fans
Nov 27th
Here are some of the useful greasemonkey for flickr addicts, like me. It makes our job easier.
First things first:
If you haven’t installed Greasemonkey, a most popular addon for firefox, it’s time to install it now. Go here and install it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
Now it’s time to install our scripts. I will share the scripts which i find very useful, but you are free to choose your own scripts by searching in userscripts.org website.
Flickr Auto Page
This script allows you to see all photos without clicking on the next page button.
Infinite Scrolling for Flickr: this greasemonkey script removes the need to go from pages to pages in Flickr by automatically expanding the display when you scroll.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8594
AutoSmile: Adding Emotion to Flickr
I use smilies all the time. So if you use smilies often grab this script.
Create a Photoblog using wordpress
Nov 14th
A Photoblog is similar to a blog but the main content is a photo. For the past one month i tried all gallery scripts in internet I didn’t like any of them, ofcourse they all have pros and cons.So back to the basics, i used the good wordpress and i am happy with it.
Free Security Tools
Nov 8th
Today i will share with you a list of free security tools i am aware of. There are many, but i like these tools very much since they do a good job, for free.
Anti-Virus:
Avira Antivir:
I simply love this free edition of Avira, also it has realtime protection. I am using this for a long time and very happy with it.
Other free anti virus software which i haven’t used but worth mentioning.
Avast!
AVG Anti-Virus
PC tools free AV
http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/
Kaspersky AVP Tool
This is a fantastic tool from kaspersky. It has no realtime scanner, only on demand scanner. But still it is fantastic product.
http://avptool.virusinfo.info/en/
a-squared
My friends used to give very good comments about this. I haven’t used this, Just give it a try.
Build your own website from scratch
Nov 4th
In this blog i will share my experience in creating a website from scratch. I will try to make it simple.
You have two options,
1. Host your site from your own computer.
2. Choose a Hosting provider.
I prefer the second, Because there are many disadvantages in hosting the site in a pc. Your system must be online 24×7, which may not possible in our country, also u need a connection with decent bandwidth which is again not possible in many places. The maximum upload rate of BSNL home 500 plan is around 40 KBps. So if 10 people are simultaneously downloading a file from your site, they could get only 4 KBps download speed.
Hosting providers do the job for you. They provide you a web space, some amount of monthly bandwidth for your site, and now a days lot of tools to make your job easier. Again there are two options,
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